Aristocracy: The Constituted Bodies 41
In summary, and here one may agree with Professor Lousse and the corporatist
school already mentioned, nothing was more characteristic of the eighteenth cen-
tury than constituted bodies of parliamentary or conciliar type. They existed every-
where west of Russia and Turkey. They were more universal than the institution of
monarchy, more widespread than the famous middle class. All defended their lib-
erties as they understood them; there was in many places a busy political life; dis-
cussion, protest, airing of grievances and refusal of taxes were very common. No
one except a few disgruntled literary men supposed that he lived under a despo-
tism. In defending their rights and justifying their pretensions, the constituted
bodies elaborated a good deal of political theory. It was a political theory of a
strongly historical kind, making much of the agreements, compacts, statutes, and
charters of former times. It is not true that all eighteenth- century thought was
unduly abstract or rationalistic; or, if some thinkers became belligerently rational-
istic, it was because historical arguments were preempted by groups which made
no secret of their exclusiveness. Nor did political thought arise merely from an
emancipation of the mind, as a process of intellectual enlightenment, from the
books of thinkers who defied the authorities of their time. It developed also in
close connection with actual politics, and in disputes between organized powers
already well established. The next chapter sketches the political philosophy that
had come to characterize the constituted bodies of Europe by the middle of the
eighteenth century, and some of the problems and paradoxes presented by the
growth of aristocracy up to that time.